


you've got magic inside your fingertips

by thegetfxckedcrew (nintendomiya)



Series: Trope Challenge [5]
Category: Arashi (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Magic, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-03
Updated: 2014-11-03
Packaged: 2018-02-23 22:29:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2558000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nintendomiya/pseuds/thegetfxckedcrew
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sho is in need of a little magic. He finds something else instead. Written for <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/users/kinoface/profile">kinoface</a> for <a href="http://superfresh.co.vu/post/100128991687">this Trope Challenge</a> (request was Sakumoto + Magic Spell).</p>
            </blockquote>





	you've got magic inside your fingertips

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kinoface](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kinoface/gifts).



> Written for [kinoface](http://archiveofourown.org/users/kinoface/profile) who requested Sakumoto + Magic Spell! It took a bit longer than I meant for it to and I hope it doesn't seem too rushed since I wrote it over a period of a weekish BUT I really hope you like it!!! Also, I'm admittedly totally weak for NissanCM!Nino so naturally, he's an important costar in this show. (And cross-posted [here](http://yourbonesshake.livejournal.com/9915.html)).

The shop is dimly lit and dingy, cobwebs clinging to various jars filled with different powders and herbs and oils. There are chalkboard signs in front of everything, labeled in someone’s messy scrawl, and some of the names make Sho flinch away immediately. A silver bell tinkles above him, warning someone of his arrival, and then the door shuts heavily behind him.

As far as magic shops go, it’s fairly ordinary. Sho is almost offended to not see anything like frog legs or bat wings in any of the jars. He’s just mumbling about it to himself when the thick, dark curtain on the other side of the register is pushed aside, the metal rings clanking noisily. A young man with prominent features and glasses steps out, looking surprised to see Sho perusing the shop.

“Can I help you?” He asks, the surprise drifting hurriedly into practiced coolness. His dark eyebrows draw together; he looks nearly frightening, his mouth serious and straight, but his fingers tug distractedly at the cuffs of his dress shirt.

Sho takes a startled step back. “Oh,” he says- surely this isn’t the person Aiba had told him about. He shouldn’t have had expectations when dealing in something as far-fetched as magic, but this person is the very definition of tall, dark and handsome-

“He’s looking for me, Jun-kun,” another voice pipes up; Sho hadn’t even heard him approach, but another man appears from behind the curtain. He’s about a head shorter than the other man that he’d called Jun-kun, and he’s wearing a loud red suit jacket with patterned sleeves. There is heavy eyeliner around his lids and a thin, gold headband wrapped around his forehead. The corner of his mouth is pulled up in a feline smirk and Sho wants to brush his hair for him. “I’m Nino. You must be Sho.”

“Yes,” Sho says, relieved, because he’s more of what Sho had been imagining. “I’m looking for-”

Nino holds up a hand, cutting Sho short, and motions him towards the curtained doorway. “Please, this isn’t amateur hour,” he says, a bit testily, “I know what you’re here for. You can come on back.”

Sho is trying awfully hard to not be offended by this man being so dismissive but it’s difficult, especially with his assistant narrowing dark, suspicious eyes at him from behind his black rimmed glasses. Head low, Sho scurries past the register and follows Nino’s back through an unlit hallway. They pass a couple of doors, but there is an open room at the end, with no windows. 

It’s sparsely decorated, another let-down for Sho, just a simple table in the middle with some vials of ingredients and a few chairs. No crystal ball or tarot cards. No incense or candles. Sho tries not to scoff- there’s even a laptop shoved into a bag on the chair in the furthest corner.

Nino rolls his eyes as if reading his mind. That is something Sho is still hopeful for. “No need to stereotype, over there. My day job is just like yours: a job. Just because I’m a little more gifted than you doesn’t mean I don’t get to go home at night.”

Rubbing the back of his neck somewhat guiltily, Sho utters a quiet apology, which seems to appease Nino. “I’ve just never done anything like this before,” he admits, and Nino looks him up and down before nodding in approval.

“I figured. Well, have a seat, and we’ll discuss this spell of yours.”

\--

Aiba has the idea, because Sho is feeling put-out by his latest failed attempt to ask Kitagawa-san out, and because Aiba apparently “knows someone.” Sho has never believed in magic, but he’s the tiniest bit desperate, and his coworker seems genuinely interested in helping him.

If he’s being totally honest with himself, he’s scared of Kitagawa-san. First of all, she’s their boss, and she has the power to fire him over any missteps he may make. Secondly, he’s witnessed her exercise this very power over ex-coworkers. She is beautiful and intimidating and Sho thinks maybe he’s in over his head, but there’s something he admires about her.

So Aiba suggests a spell, because his best friend from childhood can make magic happen, or so he claims. And Sho goes along with it.

\--

Sho successfully asks Kitagawa-san out the day after he visits Nino. She says, “thank you, but no.”

\--

The next time Sho steps into Nino’s shop, he doesn’t have to wait to be greeted. 

Still, though, the greeting is a bit unconventional. Matsumoto, Nino’s assistant, is crouched on the floor between the aisles of ingredients, his pin-striped sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He glances up when Sho enters, eyebrows furrowed, and says, “Come help me with this, will you?”

Sho tiptoes around the broken glass on the floor and picks up the broom from where it’s resting against the shelves behind Matsumoto. There are herbs all over the floor and Matsumoto is grumbling about Nino being too cheap to buy sturdier shelves. Sho busies himself with sweeping the mess into the dustpan that is already on the floor.

“What did you come in for today?” Matsumoto asks, carefully plucking the bigger pieces of glass from the floor.

Embarrassed, Sho tells him, “I’m not sure how to tell if the spell is working. Is Nino in?”

“He’s stepped out for a bit,” Matsumoto says, straightening, “but Nino’s spells always work.” He glances at Sho, thumbing his glasses up his nose. Something odd and funny happens to Sho’s stomach when their eyes meet. Sho isn’t going to pretend like Matsumoto isn’t attractive, but the strange plunge in his gut is an unfamiliar feeling. “If it doesn’t, there’s a reason for it.”

“For example, if it’s interfering with something that’s already meant to happen,” Nino’s voice says from the doorway. Sho jumps, not having heard the bell. He has a cane slung over his shoulder as he strolls in, tsking at the damage. 

“She said no,” Sho whines, and then flushes under Matsumoto’s exasperated eye roll. 

“It doesn’t always work right away,” Nino scolds, “and like Jun-kun said- if it doesn’t work at all, it’s certainly not my spell that’s gone wrong.”

\--

Sho waits another week. When he asks again, Kitagawa-san glares at him, and insists that he return to his desk. Sho assumes that’s another no.

\--

Sho has visited Nino’s shop enough times in the past month to warrant Nino calling him Sho-chan. Sometimes Aiba comes along with him, and bounds around touching things while Jun shouts at him relentlessly to cut it out, but other days, he comes alone. Nino keeps telling him that it takes time, and if it’s still not working, then the problem must lie with Sho. Maybe this is what Sho gets for being so doubtful of Nino’s magic in the first place. 

“Come on,” Jun snaps at him one day, as soon as he walks in the door. He’s pulling a blazer on, and Sho is distressingly fascinated by the shift of his shoulder blades in his thin dress shirt, and then the way they disappear under the heavier fabric. “I’m closing the shop. I need to make a run for supplies and Nino’s tied up. Apparently, it’s too much for him to run his own place for a few hours.”

Sho doesn’t ask questions, but he stumbles along after Jun to the car. Over the weeks, Sho has learned that Jun is not quite as scary as he seems; just a few days ago, he’d made a comment that had Jun doubled over in laughter. It had been a pleasant surprise, watching him break character like that. 

Now, too, sitting in Jun’s passenger seat, Sho spots a Funassyi ornament dangling from his rearview mirror. Commenting on it earns him a slap on the arm but Jun looks gratifyingly embarrassed and Sho can’t help laughing.

They talk the whole way to Nino’s supplier, a tanned man named Ohno that looks like he’s not fully awake, and Sho helps Jun load up his car. On the way back, Jun asks, “how is courting Kitagawa-san going for you?”

Sho doesn’t know why he feels so let down. He tells himself it’s because the ‘courting’ isn’t working. “Still nothing,” he says, finally, and nearly jumps a foot when Jun pats his leg.

“You’ll get there,” he says, quietly.

Sho burns in the place where Jun’s hand falls away.

\--

He tells himself he’s going to try one last time, because he might be on the verge of losing his job. When Kitagawa-san barks at him to get back to work, Sho is almost relieved.

\--

When Sho tells Jun about it later, he’s leaning over the front counter while Jun counts his till. Jun is focused on his task, but Sho knows he’s listening because every now and then, his storytelling earns a grunted response. 

At some point, Jun says, “so something is interfering with the spell.” That makes sense to Sho, but he hadn’t really had any proof that the spell would work to begin with.

Except that Jun believes in it, and for some reason, Sho doesn’t see fit to _not_ believe in it. Jun is intelligent and sensible and Sho thinks he’d believe anything Jun believed. But he doesn’t know what would interfere with Nino’s spell so he simply shrugs and puddles limply across the countertop.

Until Jun flicks him in the forehead and shouts at him for leaving smudges on the protective glass.

\--

“You should ask Jun-kun out,” Nino says to him, not paying any mind to Sho spluttering indignantly into his cup of coffee. It’d be less embarrassing without Jun sitting right beside him, expression blank aside from a light blush in his cheeks.

“Nino,” Jun chides, but he’s staring hard into his own mug as if he’s trying to read tea leaves in his coffee. “Sho-san came to you for help. Now all you do is make him help out at the shop and buy you dinner. I’m sure all he wants is for your spell to work.”

There it is again, Sho thinks, that rush of disappointment. He opens his mouth, not quite considering whatever is going to come out, but Nino interrupts him.

“Maybe it can’t because _you’re_ interfering,” Nino snips. Suddenly, he’s staring openly at Sho, looking like he’s just discovered something very important. He adds, under his breath, “How did I not see that?” and Sho realizes that he’s talking to himself. But Nino is right. Nino is always right. Maybe that’s part of his magic.

“What?” Jun asks; at the same time, Sho stands up in a rush, announcing that he’s left something at the office.

He doesn’t know how he didn’t see it, either.

\--

A girl comes in to Nino’s shop asking for a love spell. Two days later, she returns, thanking Nino profusely- the boy she’s had a crush on since grade school finally asked her out.

Nino looks pleased. Then he looks at Sho. It’s been six weeks. 

Sho doesn’t bother asking Kitagawa-san again.

\--

“Okay,” Sho begins, but he doesn’t know where his sentence is planning on proceeding to, so he ends it there.

“Okay,” Jun parrots, looking a warm mixture of bewildered and amused. Sho wants to kiss him. But he doesn’t. It didn’t make sense before, when Sho kept asking Kitagawa-san out- his boss, he asked his boss out, what was he thinking?- because he had been nervous, sure, but _able_ to. 

Looking at Jun, now, his words break apart in his mouth. He struggles to piece them together. He tries, “do you-” and then, “how about-” and afterwards, they blend into, “do about-”

Jun holds a hand up to cut him off, head tilted comically to the side. The shop is always quiet, but it seems much quieter now, with Sho tumbling words out of his lips that don’t make any sense and Jun weighing them silently in his mind. “Is there an easier way of doing this?” He asks, curiously.

Sho wonders if he knows. Nino knows, after all, and maybe he’s told Jun. Or maybe Jun figured it out. 

“I,” Sho attempts, making an anguished face that has Jun laughing at him. “I’m really trying here,” he says, deflating dramatically. It doesn’t register immediately that Jun has risen from his seat until he’s stepped so close to Sho that they are breathing in the same space.

“I know,” Jun says, “somehow, this sudden language barrier is really charming.” He’s staring at Sho’s mouth. 

Sho doesn’t say anything; he doesn’t want to ruin it.

“Do you want to get dinner?” Jun asks, finally meeting Sho’s eyes. Sho is a tad light-headed over what he sees there, the uncertain hope behind Jun’s confidence, how he’s hesitantly holding his breath. As if Sho would say no. As if Sho _could_. After all of his fumbling, how could there be any question in Jun’s mind? Maybe his nerves hadn’t made it clear enough for him.

He tries to say yes, but instead finds himself closing the gap, leaning in against Jun’s pliant mouth. Jun’s fingers slide into his hair and he holds him there, Sho’s lips moving against his. Sho grabs his hips and holds on, presses close, sighs low and soft in his throat, and--

“Seriously! Seriously?! Take that out of my store!” Nino’s voice shouts, and Sho springs away guiltily, having the good grace to look embarrassed. Jun doesn’t. He makes an irritated noise before he bothers to step back.

“I told you,” Nino grumbles as he pushes between them on his way to the backroom, “you were interfering. Now please, go to dinner, get out of my sight.”

“You don’t have to look so scandalized,” Jun quips, but he takes Sho’s hand, smiling at him like the sunrise. “We were just leaving.”


End file.
